


Gardenia

by Jaydee_Faire



Category: Final Fantasy Tactics
Genre: F/M, Flower metaphors, Forbidden Love, help I ship them now, why do i keep doing this to myself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-17
Updated: 2018-07-17
Packaged: 2019-06-11 23:37:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15326913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaydee_Faire/pseuds/Jaydee_Faire
Summary: Argath appreciates the beauty of a wildflower.





	Gardenia

**Author's Note:**

> A gardenia is a flower that represents forbidden or secret love.

Laying in the grass, her legs two long, slender stems leading to a bloom of white petticoats, she was more beautiful than he'd ever seen her. 

All her shyness, all her quiet ways fell away out here in the meadow where her flowers grew. She knew each of them by name and delighted in some that had returned after a long winter's absence. Buttercups, which he'd always been told were useless, a roadside weed, were beautiful in her hands, bright against her dark skin. 

And Argath might have been content to just stand and watch her, but she drew her feet underneath herself and looked up at him through dark eyelashes, smiling and beckoning to him. "You have to come close to admire them," she said. 

So Argath sat, awkwardly at first, beside her in a patch of tall white blossoms that Tietra called "Queen's Lace." The petals did indeed look like the snowy fall of lace at the hems of her dress, tickling when she took his hand in hers. He looked down at her skirts, knowing that if he looked up into her face, into her eyes, at the dark coils of hair falling over her shoulders, she would wrap him in her spell again and there would be no telling when he'd surface from it again. 

Being with Tietra was senseless. Being with her was dangerous. When he laid beside her and could look at no one but her, he couldn't know who else was looking, how many tongues would be set wagging, and if those tales, richly embroidered as a princess' cloak, would reach Limberry and his family home and his mother's ear.

When he tried to explain to Tietra the difference between them, that no woman would wed him knowing his mouth had been soiled by hers, she laughed at him and kissed him again. His next protest was weaker, unraveling under her fingers, until she pushed him onto his back and settled herself atop him, leaning down so her long hair curtained their faces and turned the sunlit meadow to twilight. "I shall soil all of you," she said, lips brushing his, "and afterwards you can have a very long bath."

And he was caught again, trapped by her magic that made him forget, for a little while, their differences and think only of how perfectly they came together.

**Author's Note:**

> Visit (or scream at) me on Tumblr @cyberphuck!


End file.
